The Joy Luck Club(1993)- User Reviews

Joy Luck Club a worthy effort

star44

One boring and dull day in Geography class, my teacher decided to make us watch The Joy Luck Club. I dont say make us as in I didn’t want to.

The Joy Luck Club is another one of those movies that follows multiple story lines during the running time of the film. The great thing about it this time is, it’s not all spliced together so that it happens at the same time.

The joy luck club of the title consists of three women who went through hell growing up in China. They escaped, met, shared their life stories and made the Joy Luck club, which has nothing to do with joy or luck, as the opening states, but hope.

Some say that there are a total of sixteen stories entwined together throughout the whole movie. It sounds right. I tried to count, but got lost in the perplexities of each story.

Every story is similar: A mother had a bad childhood, so their daughters don’t understand them and are messed up. That is how each and every story goes. But variety is created withing each one. The mothers are Suyuan, Lindo, Ying Ying, and An Mei. The daughters are matched in order with their mother, June, Waverly, Lena, and Rose. They each have two stories to tell, each person, which continues to make the story complicated.

Instead of telling them all at the same time, switching back and forth, it tells one story at a time, the mother and the daughter. Suyuan and June are the main characters, because their story is told first, but left unfinished, and then finished after everyone else.

One of the plus sides of the film was the transistion of the little girls to motherhood. I knew that these weren’t the originals, but they all shared similar features to the original actress. It was kind of scary at points. But this is something rarely seen in films that present the childhood of an actor. Usually you just see someone trying to imitate the grown-up counterpart, but it doesn’t work. It does in this film.

Acting was of small quality in some parts, but good in others. Nothing that particularly stood out, though. I hated June’s character qualities. She seemed to me like a self-conniving brat, and I couldn’t stand her when she yelled at her mom for hoping the best for her. Hoping, not wanting. It made me grind my teeth. When June puts Rose’s child, Jennifer to sleep, the child displays some bad acting, but I can’t blame her. She’s only four or so years old. Even so, I think they could of found someone different (though they were probably spent on all the children they’d hired to play the younger parts).

All in all, I think Joy Luck Club is a good movie. I probably would’ve enjoyed more if my teacher didn’t stop it so we could take down notes on the character’s story. But it was good in all. I would recommend it if you can stand eight characters telling two stories each.